This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths.
More Quotes from William Robertson Smith:
In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual.William Robertson Smith
The land of a god corresponds with the land of his worshipers.
William Robertson Smith
Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin.
William Robertson Smith
Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.
William Robertson Smith
Every social act had a reference to the gods as well as to men, for the social body was not made up of men only, but of gods and men.
William Robertson Smith
The god, it would appear, was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people.
William Robertson Smith
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